2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) think our aspiration of having a Kurdish state would not be as high as what we have now. But because you oppressed, people do the opposite. 106 Here, the 29-year-old man emphasises the historical context of Kurdistan and suggests that attempts to address the exclusion and oppression of Kurds must consider from what it seeks to differentiate itself and how the institution of the nation-state might perpetuate the oppressive structures from which liberation is sought. The participant goes on to identify the reflexive nature of ethnicity and nationalism and suggests that the aspiration for a Kurdish state must be situated within the context of continuous exclusion from the nation-states Kurds inhabit. The participant’s narrative thereby relates to the idea that Kurdish nationalism has developed, and become increasingly ethnicised, largely as a consequence of the increasingly ethnicisation of the national community’s boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. 107 Several participants expressed that the establishment of a Kurdish state in itself is insufficient and that it is only when coupled with other advances in equality and rights that the establishment of a state can be part of a successful solution to address exclusion and oppression. A 32-year-old participant from Kurdistan-Iran expresses that ‘Kurds have a right to a state. But that is not everything and that doesn’t solve all problems’. However, the ideas shared by participants also differ according to whether they are imagining an ideal situation or suggesting practical steps to mitigate the exclusion of Kurds within current established institutional structures. People without a state also must live. What Kurdish people actually stand for is a world without states. We believe that people shouldn’t live within concepts of states but in the contemporary world it is complicated and we have a world system that means that you need a country, and identity and a passport for practical reasons. It is not so much for identity. Because in the world system today you are only protected when you have a passport from a certain state. I do have a Turkish passport but it is just for practical reasons and also for us it doesn’t mean the same protection. For me, the best situation would be if we didn’t have borders. 108 The issues of citizenship and statehood here return to a discussion about the structure and implications of the international state system and the status of Kurds within this system. It is here valuable to return to the concept of stateless people and the notion of Kurdistan as a stateless nation — unrecognised and divided between states that are recognised as sovereign within the modern state system.109 Aside from the 1920s — the brief period in which Kurdistan was under consideration for recognition as a sovereign state 110 — Kurds have inhabited nation-states as minority groups. 111 Through the state system’s division of the world population into subpopulations by territorial states and the legitimacy afforded to the governments of these states to govern the population on its territory, 112 Kurds have been subjugated to governance by states who define 106 107 108 109 110 111 Interview with 29-year-old man (Kurdistan-Syria). See Natali (n 49) 48; Vali (n 1). Interview with 50-year-old woman (Kurdistan-Turkey). See Vali (n 1). Radpey (n 2) 480. See Eliassi, ‘Statelessness in a World of Nation-States’ (n 5); Eliassi, ‘Conceiving Citizenship and Statelessness in the Middle East and Sweden’ (n 5). 112 Hindess (n 34) 1488. 302